


higher than hurt (louder than loneliness)

by Mia_Zeklos



Series: Reylo Week 2020 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Codependency, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Princess Rey (Star Wars), she's unconvinced but she's fully involved into her role in the Palpatine bloodline so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: "The princess is an experiment, Ben knows."
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721188
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020





	higher than hurt (louder than loneliness)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day five of the Reylo Week - Wounds/Healing/Touch. I think I covered it all, though it does lack the happy ending (even if it does suggest it, in a way). Title taken out of a quote from Florence Welch.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it and feedback is, as always, most welcome!

The princess is an experiment, Ben knows. He’s only been in her presence – and part of the Final Order – for a little over a year, but it’s all anyone ever talks about whenever she’s mentioned. The Emperor is biding his time, watching her as carefully as he is the rest of the galaxy, and when it comes time for him to reclaim his previous position again, she’ll be either worshipped or discarded. As the day draws nearer, the noose around her throat tightens and it’s almost certain what her fate will be. _Both_.

Or so she thinks, her smile a brittle, watery thing as his grip around her clenched hands tightens. “This body won’t sustain him much longer,” she says, for once daring to look him in the eye and not turn away before he does. “The clones aren’t working for him, he says, and it’s tiring after all those years. If he doesn’t find a host when this one dissolves, he’ll be gone for good. My own might be more resilient, with my mother being— what she was.”

“Human,” Ben clarifies. He doesn’t mean to hurt her, but ever since the day they’d first met, it had always been difficult to predict the things that would set her off. Over the years, Rey had perfected the serenity to handle just about anything that happened to come her way. How she’d done it with the Emperor as her only family is anybody’s guess, but he can’t help but admire her for it – she should have been the Final Order’s crowning jewel, the dark side incarnate. He’d certainly thrown enough effort into her over the years and bringing Ben himself in had been the latest – and, so far, the only even remotely effective – part of that project.

 _A dyad in the Force._ The phenomenon, something Ben had kept at the back of his mind for his entire life without even realising it, had been a fascinating discovery when the connection between his mind and the princess’s had opened sometime last year. His life had been turned upside down since then, under not entirely unrelated circumstances. Rey had become the piercing light in the miserable fog of his life; the driving force behind the change he’d wrecked upon everything around him soon after. They had barely known each other back then, but she’d offered him a bit of hope and he’d offered her a bit of freedom and it had been just enough for him to kill his Master after yet another bout of painful, ceaseless berating and flee the First Order soon after. Trying to seek out the Resistance had been out of the question – there’s far too much blood on his hands for that now – and the only other direction he’d been able to think of had been _hers_.

The Emperor had welcomed him with open arms and, while he’d been assured of his usefulness for their cause plenty of times, it’s clear what his true purpose in the bowels of the Final Order is – he’s here to set an example and, should that fail, to be used as a bargaining chip for Rey’s compliance. It had been obvious since the start; she’s conflicted enough on her own, but the situation had only worsened after the connection between them had awakened. For all his faults, Ben is well aware of what he is – a living, walking horror story for anyone who’d ever dared to try and resist the dark side while still dabbling in it as much as Rey had already been forced to. He’s neither a Jedi nor a Sith, a torn, tormented creature for the Force to play with as it pleases. If Palpatine had meant to horrify her with the sight of him, he’d failed rather spectacularly, much to Ben’s own surprise. Rey had taken one long look at him and had accepted him as the teacher and guard that her grandfather had presented him as, pushing at his defences with the sort of quiet, stubborn impatience that he’s grown to love by now until he’d become her friend. It’s just the two of them against the rest of the universe; the fact that she seems to agree help somewhat, given that his initial decision to come to her had been inevitably tied with the desire to kill her only living family.

It’s not something he would ever voice, of course. It would take one swing of his lightsaber to free them both from his grasp and liberate the rest of the galaxy pre-emptively and it’s been especially tempting ever since he’d realised just how much he’d been influenced by the man through his entire life, but he can’t let the thought creep into her mind just now. It’s increasingly difficult, keeping anything a secret when all the Force seems to want to do is bridge them even closer together, but he’s yet to give in.

“Human,” Rey agrees. “He considered you as a vessel too, once or twice, but you’d struggle too much. Things get less interesting for him when they struggle, I think. I’ve been waiting for years for him to realise that I’m not worth the effort.”

It makes perfect sense, in retrospect – the Emperor had decided to use him for far more mundane tasks once he’d realised just how much work he’s being. With his apparently endless history of discarding the people he’d thoroughly used until now once they become too difficult to handle, he’d have expected him to give up much sooner.

Rey, on the other hand... Deliberately untrained as she’d been kept until now, she could still turn into a powerful weapon in his new empire. She wouldn’t – Ben knows that much, even if he doubts that her grandfather does, too – but he’s not exactly drowning in options. If it’s her or no one, she has her beating heart, at least. If he’s as desperate to cling to the world of the living as he’d seemed ever since Ben had arrived on Exegol, it’s only a matter of time before he cuts her half-hearted training short and lays his claim on what he considers to be rightfully his.

“I’ll be here if he tries anything,” Ben assures her now, fully cognisant of the fact that she’d picked up on his train of thought immediately. Her fingers curl around his in his grip and she gives him yet another one of those hesitant smiles. It only serves to make him more ferocious. “I’ll always be with you.”

“I know.” Rey’s hands carefully disentangle from his own and she reaches out, cupping his cheek. It’s meant to comfort _him_ , even now, and he leans into the touch without fully meaning to, unable to resist the temptation. She’s a startlingly bright presence in the Force, piercing through the endless trudge of unidentified pain that his mind swims in, her caress bridging a gap that had formed an eternity ago. _Haunted_ , she’d called him when they had first met, and with every day he’d spent in her presence, he’d felt less and less so to the point where he’d been sure of who he was for the first time in his life. Kylo Ren’s armour is still the only thing keeping him moving through the dormant empire as it claws its way to the surface again, but here, where no one else can hear, he’s always, “ _Ben_.”

He kisses her. It’s the only response she really wants and he makes sure to tighten the already solid shield he’s projecting around her chambers until he knows he’ll feel any invasion before it reaches her. The Emperor had never tried to warn him to keep his hands off of the princess he’d kept so carefully hidden all those years, but chances are, he’d never thought any of them would dare.

“Rey,” he echoes. It’s meant to be a protest at first – _we can’t, we shouldn’t, he’ll **know**_ – but there’s not much point by now. They can and they _have_ , or he would have been nowhere near as bold as he is when he responds by pushing her on her back, crawling in between her parted knees to deepen their kiss as his hands busy themselves with the buckle of the belt that holds her robes closed. Her fingers close into a fist in his hair when he trails his lips down the side of her throat and all the way to her chest as more and more skin is revealed to him. Her mind is buzzing with everything she doesn’t dare to say and it’s too much for him to process, too much to _define_ ; full of emotions he doesn’t think anyone had ever projected in his direction.

The same conflict that had taken root inside him when he’d taken his first breath had started spreading to her too, pulsing angrily right through the tenderness of her touch – as the million pieces of his soul, forcibly tugged apart over the years, start to fit back into place, the cracks inside her are spreading far and wide. He’d been so ready to defend her from the Emperor that he’d never thought that he might be the problem – that she might be doing it to herself, even – and now, as she holds him close, the heat of her burning on his tongue, all her rage and suffering and elation are chanting the same name – _Ben, Ben, Ben._

~.~

The storm is quelled, for now.

It’s almost impossible, Rey can’t help but notice, to understand everything that the man next to her _is_ when he’s like this – serene and calm, for once, in his sleep as he holds her in his arms, his iron grip on her body nearly as firm as the Force bending to his will to keep them both in this safe bubble for just a while longer. Awake, he’s ever vigilant, hidden away behind a stony expression and layers and layers of armour that she had never thought she’d penetrate as thoroughly as she had by now.

She hadn’t known what to make of him when they had first met in the same way that she’d never known what to make of herself. All her life, everything had been light and dark; a stiff structure that would never bow to the sort of change he’s trying to force upon it. His presence had set her gaze to entirely new horizons; to something that had always been right there and he had encouraged her to reach out and take it. The shame that would have stopped her before – shame for wanting too much, for being too much – is practically nonexistent now. It makes her feel as invulnerable as he clearly believes himself to be after killing his Master. It also makes her more anxious than she’s ever been.

There’s more danger in it than she’d ever expected; the kind of greed that she’s suddenly plagued by. He’d been brought here to keep her quiet and compliant, terrified at the prospect of what trying to deflect from her grandfather’s tension – more than her nature is already dictating her to – would do to her. If anything, it had made her mad with curiosity. She wants to _know_ now, more than ever, what it’s like to have it all. It’s fine if it hurts – she can take a little pain if it means freedom. She can take a lot of pain for that, for him, and a part of her wants him to know it as soon as possible. He should have kept her chained to the ground and instead he’d given her wings and the only thing Rey wants is to return the favour. He’s seen so much more from the world, knows it all far better than she could dream to, but it doesn’t matter – there are still more than enough ways for her to open his eyes, too. She trails her fingertips over his eyelids, watching the doubtlessly vivid vision hidden behind them unfold, and dreams a dream of her own.

He’s chaos and fury and a sick, unbeatable thread of hope woven in-between it all, and she’s never wanted anything more.


End file.
